Hymnody of the Blue Heron
by Kevin Hadduck is a varied collection, thematically and
stylistically. The poems often employ imagery from the farmlands and
wilds of Kansas or from
“Nature” generally, and some explore our relationship to Nature. About
half of the poems delve into love of friends, spouse, or family, lost
love or
tensions within love. Very many of these poems speak of failure, of
body, mind, or soul, but also of hope for forgiveness, reunion, and
healing.

“Reading Kevin Hadduck’s poems stretches both the mind and body, for
they span the antipodes of north and south, heaven and earth. Firmly
footed in the
minutiae of daily life and nature, love for human life as well as love
for herons and hawks, the poems soar frequently, evoking the
transcendent and the
unspeakable. Poems like ‘Alleluias of the Red Tail’ take the reader
from the concrete and the specific to the spiritual and
intangible.”—James E. Barcus

“Kevin Hadduck knows the writer’s work of ‘stumbling among words
like a child among heavy tools.’ He knows that ‘Words are not enough.’
And yet, like the
very best of poets, he loiters among headstones, enters forests, walks
“along the creek’s bank . . . littered / Now with generations of bald
tires / And
mud-choked washing machines” until songs of birds suddenly ‘lay siege
[his] word-lack, lackluster language.’ Open this book, walk into its
pages and
hearken to this refreshingly honest, imaginative and reverent poetic
voice that stretches lyrically across the layered landscapes of this
country and its
vanishing seasons. Search with Hadduck for ‘some convenient place for
awe.’ Trust him when – ‘beyond the dust . . . beyond the voice’ -- he
declares ‘this,
then, is my argument for love.’”—Gary Bouchard